In order to guarantee quality services, it is preferable for a network operator to be able to administer devices remotely.
The remote administration of devices requires in particular:                detecting and recognizing the administered devices, for example their serial numbers and their software and hardware versions;        monitoring these devices, for example by obtaining monitoring information and performance indicators.        
In a local area network, an access gateway enables in particular devices located in a client site to access a WAN (Wide Area Network) wide area communication network, such as the Internet. These devices are also called CPE, for ‘Customer Premises Equipment’. For a local area network, these may be in particular the access gateway, a ‘Set-Top Box’ TV decoder or a mobile terminal. In the context of a home automation network, these may also be household appliances, alarm systems or sensors.
The remote management of the devices of a local area network is based, for example, on a technical report drawn up by the Broadband Forum, TR-069 ‘CPE WAN Management Protocol’. This technical report defines a CWMP protocol specifying the communication between an administration server, called remote ACS (Auto-Configuration Server), and a device of the local area network. The CWMP protocol defines a mechanism that enables in particular a secure auto-configuration of the devices of the local area network and of other functions for managing these devices.
It is possible in particular for the operator of the network to perform remote interventions, such as:                updating the software or the firmware of a device when the software version or the firmware needs to be upgraded;        performing diagnostics when a device exhibits a fault;        dynamically installing and configuring new services;        monitoring the state and the performance of a device.        
The CWMP protocol is based on the Internet protocol, more precisely on TCP/IP (for ‘Transmission Control Protocol’).
The remote updating of the software or of the firmware is an operation that requires particular precautions. It is preferable not to interrupt it during execution.
Specifically, this risks corrupting the software or the firmware and preventing operation of the device being updated. Moreover, the updating operation may cause a service interruption on the part of the device. When the device is a gateway for accessing the wide area network for a set of devices of a local area network, the service is also interrupted for this set of devices. The updates are thus often programmed by the operator so as to be executed during the night, in order to limit the impact thereof. However, it is not guaranteed that the device to be updated is not being used during a night-time update. It is emphasized here that the updates are generally performed without a request for validation on the part of a user of the device.